St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-03-07
THE LEGISLATURE.

In glancing over the list of laws passed
by the late legislature one is struck with
the fact ii:at three-fourthS or probably four
ffths of them are of local OF private ma
ture This fact is ali additional argument
in favor of new constitution. There
should be constitutional provision prohib-
ting special legislation except in cases
where general law cannot be made appli-
cable. The fact that the constitution per-
mits special legislation is one explanation of
why the average legislature does not give
more satisfactory results. In the first place,
each member is elected on some local issue.
His constituency have some AK to grind on
the legislative grindstone. and they elect the
representative to do the grinding. He
comes up to the legislature with that one
issue uppermoSt in his mind. He gets to
taking with his fellow members and finds
that every one of them is situated just as
he is. They lave local axes to grind also.
Then commences system of log-rollng.
and on the principle Of you tickle me and
Ill tickle YOU the work of the legislature
goes on. Measures OF public Importance
and of a general nature are sheved to make
who has local measure to push
feels justified in sacrificing everything else
10 secure its success. because he knows that
his constituents will ndorse his action.
Thus it is the general welfare suffers in
order that private and local interests may
be promoted. The last legislature was no
exception in this respect. Possibly it was
numbered by larger number OF local bills
than any of its predecessors.
In addition to this. the last legislature
lacked competent leadership and the bust
ness of the body got into inextricable ell
tangiement. This is apt to be the case in
any legislative body unless there is some
person with experience and capacity to lay
hold of the business of the session and re-
duce IL to system. AS a rule members of
a state legislature are not men with an en-
larged business experience. They are gen.
orally good, clever men, with honest inten-
tons and impulses.-probably well-to-do
farmers or skillful mechanics-but their line
of thought and action has not qualified
them for the duties CT legislative career.
They come together as strangers. and for
the most part entirely ignorant of parlia-
mentary law and practice. By the time
they have acquired sufficient knowledge of
legislative life to qualify them to make
beginning, the session has expired by lim-
tation. Thus it is year after year legisla-
lures meet and adjourn and accomplish but
little to commend itself to popular favor
Now and then it occurs that some per-
son of influence, experience and capacity
gets into the legislature who can gain the
confidence of the body to degree that en-.
ables him to take the lead in blocking out
good legislative work. it was the misfor-
tune OF the last legislature to have been in
the condition of an army without COM
nander. Those best qualified to command
were relegated to the ranks and kept there.
and some of the ablest of them hardly per-
mitted to serve in the ranks In considera-
ton of all these things it is matter of sur
prise that the legislature accomplished as
much good as it did. 1t is singuarly for
tunate for the state that no worse results
were achieved. While we have some cause
for cohgratulation that the state has es-
capped good many evils that might have
been Inflicted, still there are enough in
sight TO remind us of the duty of taking
every possible precaution to provide against
their recurrence in the future. First and
foremost we want new constitution which
will limit the work of legislature to mat
tiers of general nature.